AI-Generated Books of Nonsense Are All Over Amazon's Bestseller Lists
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Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited bestseller list was full of books with titles like “Apricot bar code architecture” and “Jessica’s Attention” earlier this week.

My title might be a bit hyperbolic, but stuff like this worries me. I love to read and I love reading on a kindle. This has been going on for a while, but it has now reached absurd levels.

  • Snapz@beehaw.orgEnglish
    8·
    1 year ago

    “Folding Ideas” does amazing work on YouTube around exposing grifters in well structured, long form explanations of their grifts.

    One of their videos looked into a group of growth hustler type folks, a pair of twins. Part of their scam was automating the process of creating fake books like this from start to finish to sell them online for passive income.

    Highly recommend anything this channel creates. Worth your time to have a focused sit to watch the journey unfold (especially if interested in the main subject of this post).

    https://youtu.be/biYciU1uiUw

    • KowowowEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      There’s also BtB

      Robert evans did a decent job looking into this specifically inspired by folding ideas

      There’s a podcast and written version at shatterzone substack

    • ConstableJelly@beehaw.orgEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      I fully second this. Folding Ideas is a first-class educator. I would still be completely in the dark on NFTs and Crypto without him, and “In Search of a Flat Earth” completely changed my perspective on flat earth adherents (i.e., I am much less amused by it).

        • ConstableJelly@beehaw.orgEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          No secret, I just used to think they were being stubbornly dense, like goofy idiots. His video contended that it’s more malicious than that, born out of evangelical arrogance and an unfulfilled need to be smarter and more “moral” than everyone else.

          • argv_minus_one@beehaw.orgEnglish
            3·
            1 year ago

            I feel like I turned out similarly, except the exact opposite.

            To me, it’s really, really important to be correct. Not to think I’m correct, mind you, but to actually be correct. One of my fears, therefore, is to be wrong about something without realizing it, especially if other people do realize that I’m wrong.

            I wonder what that says about me.